Marvel Tales and Unusual Stories
By the start of 1936, Crawford had plans to expand his enterprise, including newsstand distribution for Marvel Tales and the publication of a series of pamphlets and hardcover books, but his finances were unequal to his ambitions, and no further issues of the magazines appeared.
[6] He intended to print fantasy and horror in addition to science fiction; sf historian Sam Moskowitz suggests that this was an attempt to broaden the potential subscription base for the magazine.
[5] It was apparent that more parts of the issue were planned, but they never appeared, and an incomplete story, "Tharda, Queen of the Vampires", by Richard Tooker, never saw full publication.
[9] David H. Keller's "Binding Deluxe", which was horror, rather than sf, appeared, along with a story by H. P. Lovecraft, "Celephais",[6][9] that had previously only been published in an amateur magazine edited by his wife, Sonia Greene.
[13] A second issue of Marvel Tales, which Crawford printed with two different covers, appeared a couple of months later, dated July/August 1934, with the number of pages increased from 40 to 60.
"The Titan", by P. Schuyler Miller, which had been advertised in the original flyer for Unusual Stories, began serialization, and Robert Bloch's first published fiction, "Lilies", appeared, along with "The Golden Bough" by David H.
[5][16] Moskowitz considers the fourth issue, dated March/April 1935, to have finally reached the level of quality that Crawford had been aiming for, with fully professional artwork, layout, and presentation.
[5] The issue included "The Creator", by Clifford D. Simak, which Simak had been unable to sell elsewhere because of its religious content;[6] "The Doom That Came to Sarnath", another H. P. Lovecraft story reprinted from an amateur magazine;[17] "The Cathedral Crypt", by John Beynon Harris, later better known under the pseudonym John Wyndham; and two serial instalments: the second part of Miller's "The Titan", and part one of "The Nebula of Death", a novel by George Allan England that had been serialized in People's Favorite Magazine in 1918.
[9] Crawford announced in this issue that Unusual Stories would reappear, and also announced plans to expand into book publishing, with the initial titles projected to be Mars Mountain by Eugene George Key, People of the Crater by Andrew North (a pseudonym for Andre Norton), and The Missing Link by Ralph Milne Farley, and a series of pamphlets containing short stories.
[5] The issue also included short stories by Carl Jacobi, Emil Petaja, and Ralph Milne Farley, and the next instalments of both the serials in progress, by England and Miller.
[5][21] Crawford's ambition was to demonstrate that the existing professional sf magazines were limiting the field by turning down good stories that did not fit their idea of what was acceptable.
Ashley describes Marvel Tales as "a worthwhile and exciting experiment that could have had a significant impact on the development of SF had it succeeded", and Crawford as a pioneer in his attempts to prove that science fiction need not adhere to the standard pulp formulas.
